


I Burned All My Bridges Trying to Get Home

by BitterSilence



Series: Young Justice: Under the Red Hood [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Age Reversal, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Batman has feelings too, Gen, Now he's the Red Hood, Tim Drake the Chess Master, Tim was the Second Robin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-04
Updated: 2013-09-04
Packaged: 2017-12-25 14:11:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/954046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BitterSilence/pseuds/BitterSilence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damned if you do, damned if you don't.</p><p>[Tim can't go back to Robin, and the only way forward is the Red Hood]</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Burned All My Bridges Trying to Get Home

  


> **June 3, 2009**
> 
> **Gotham City – Diamond District**
> 
> **1945 Hours**

Batman was across town dealing with Lynx and the Golden Dragons. Robin and Batgirl (the new one, Cassandra Cain) were in Bludhaven. Nightwing and Red Robin were with the Titans in San Francisco, tracking Deathstroke as he worked on locating the target his latest contract - an assassin from Brazil specializing in poisons - which Tim had sent him anonymously with a hefty wad of cash and the promise of more. Tim had killed said assassin in a fit of pit-rage four months ago when he found out he’d tortured a little girl to death. No one besides him knew the man was dead.

Tim, beneath the persona of the Red Hood, melted into Gotham's shadows as he crouched on a rooftop. On the street below, the Joker stood over the upturned truck that contained Black Mask and his captured goons, completely unaware of the danger above. Still insane. Still murderous. Still laughing. Exactly the same in all the ways that mattered. Red Hood put his sniper rifle in position in preperation for the shot.

At first, Tim had wanted nothing more than to go home. To return to the manor, Bruce, Jason, and Damian.

But.

He’d killed. He’d been resurrected by the leader of the League of Assassins. And…he wasn’t the same. He wasn’t the boy who’d died in that warehouse.

The harsh, painful truth of it was that there was no room for the Timothy Drake who had come back from the dead. Not with the Bats. Not anywhere, really.

Tim couldn’t go home, so he made the only decision he could; he moved forward. He became the Red Hood, terror of the underworld, a Batman without morals. He had rules (do not kill unless it will save lives, plan, do not break minds or sanities, practice, and last but not least _no more dead Robins_ ), but not ethics. A part of him wondered if he’d ever had them. Tim was his mother’s son as much as he was Batman's apprentice, after all.

Red Hood turned off the safety on his sniper rifle and fired. He didn’t miss. The Joker crumpled to the ground, a neat hole in between his eyes. Blood began to pool beneath the body.

It was too late for him, but it was early enough for Jason Todd and Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon. He knew why Batman wouldn’t kill, and to some degree he understood it. Tim didn’t follow those rules. Not anymore. He wasn't sure he was capable of it. He’d killed too many in his first months out of the pit.

Two alleyways away was an entrance to a crumbling section of the Gotham sewers. From there, Tim knew how to escape into the vast network of caves beneath Gotham that even Batman hadn’t completely mapped out. Bruce wouldn’t follow him there.

Red Hood fled the scene and began to hatch a plot to take down what was left of Black Mask’s organization.

 

  


> **June 3, 2009**
> 
> **Gotham City – Batcave**
> 
> **2300 Hours**

Bruce frowned at the computer, currently showing what little footage of the Red Hood he’d managed to gather. He was well-trained, that much was obvious, and he knew Gotham well. He’d known to exit the scene by an unmapped section of the caves, where Batman wouldn’t follow because of the possibility of an ambush or simply getting lost. The Red Hood had shown an impressive strategic mind, manipulating Black Mask into releasing the Joker through blowing up shipments, stealing from members of his organization, and faking multiple assassination attempts. What criminal hated the Joker that much? Bruce could list several, but none of them were capable of pulling something like this off.

Then he was looking at this wrong. Which vigilante had a flexible moral code and hated the Joker enough to do something like this?

Bruce’s eyes were drawn almost without his will to the first case that had been placed in the Batcave. Tim’s Case. _The_ Case. The inscription, _a good soldier._ Even over two years after his second Robin’s death, remembering that particular failure hurt like nothing else.

Tim – Tim had been so similar to him, except for all the ways in which he wasn’t. If he’d survived the explosion, somehow…or if his body had been replaced…Bruce knew he had the potential to turn into someone like the Red Hood.

Bruce shook himself away from those thoughts angrily. Tim was _dead._ He’d watched Tim’s last moments through the camera in the mask himself. There had been no lie or trick. Just his Robin – his _son_ – dead and cold and gone from the world forever. The Red Hood wasn’t Tim.

No matter how much Bruce wished he was. Because the truth was, he’d rather have Tim back in some capacity, even as an amoral, murdering vigilante, then have to wake up every day and know that he’d never see Tim again.

 

 


End file.
